^be ©pen Court - COnnecting REpositories · 324 THEOPENCOURT....
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^be ©pen CourtA MONTHLY MAGAZINE
2)evote& to tbe Science ot IReltgton, tbe IReU^ton of Science, ant) tbe
Bxtensfon ot tbe "Keligious jparltament ITDea
Editor: Dr. Paul Carus,Assod t
• J ^- ^- Heoblbr.Asiittant Editor: T. J. McCormack.
a es. -i^
Mary Carus.
VOL. XIII. (no. 6) June, 1899. NO. 517
CONTENTS:Frontispiece. Condorcet.
Paganism in the Roman Church. The Rev. Th. Trede, Pastor of the Evan-gelical Church of Naples . , 321
French Philosophy at the End of the Eighteenth Century— Condorcet. Prof.L. L6vy-Bruhl, Maitre de Conferences at the Sorbonne, Paris . . 340
Intermediate Forms of Abstraction. A Study in the Evolution of GeneralIdeas. Th. Ribot, Editor of the Revue Philosophique and Professorin the College de France, Paris 349
Peace on Earth. A Problem of Practical Diplomacy. A Suggestion to theMembers of the International Peace Commission. Editor . . . 360
Plato and the Cross. With Illustrations. Editor 364
Internat'ional Good- Will. 373
The Filipino Question 375
Henry Clarke Warren. Obituary 376
Manilal N. Dvivedi. Obituary 378
A Further Note on the Buddhist Nativity Sutta 379
A Practical Introduction to English Literature 380
Book Reviews, Notes, etc 380
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Jp^
^be ©pen GourtA MONTHLY MAGAZINE
2)evotc& to tbe Science of IReltgton, tbe IReliGton ot Science, an^ tbe
Bitension ot tbe IReligious parliament 1[C)ea
Editor: Dr. Paul Carus,Assodat • 3 ^- ^- Hkgkler.
Assistant Editor: T. J. McCORMACK.'^'
] Mary Carus,
VOL. XIII. (no. 6) June, 1899. NO. 517
CONTENTS
:
Frontispiece. Condorcet.
Paganism in the Roman Church. The Rev. Th, Trede, Pastor of the Evan-gelical Church of Naples 321
French Philosophy at the End of the Eighteenth Century— Condorcet. Prof.L. L^vy-Bruhl, Maitre de Conferences at the Sorbonne, Paris . . 340
Intermediate Forms of Abstraction. A Study in the Evolution of GeneralIdeas. Th. Ribot, Editor of the Revue Philosophique and Professorin the College de France, Paris 349
Peace on Earth. A Problem of Practical Diplomacy. A Suggestion to the
Members of the International Peace Commission. Editor . . . 360
Plato and the Cross. With Illustrations. Editor 364
Internafional Good- Will. 373
The Filipino Question 375
Henry Clarke Warren. Obituary 376
Manilal N. Dvivedi. Obituary 378
A Further Note on the Buddhist Nativity Suita 379
A Practical Introduction to English Literature 380
Book Reviews, Notes, etc 380
CHICAGO
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The Open CourtA MONTHLY MAGAZINE
Devoted to the Science of Religion, the Religion of Science, andthe Extension of the Religious Parliament Idea.
VOL. XIII. (NO. 6.) JUNE, 1899. NO. 517
Copyright by The Open Court Publishing Co., 1899.
PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN CHURCH.'
BY TH. TREDE, "
Pastor of the Evangelical Church at Naples.
IN silent desolation, surrounded by swamps and malaria, there
rises in the plain of Paestum the famous temple of Poseidon, the
best preserved of all the extant Hellenic temples. "A tale of the
ages olden,"—thus it impressed us as we saw it not long ago in the
light of the evening sun. " The sun rules "—such is the expres-
sion in modern Greece for the sinking king of day, a popular ex-
pression understood only by one whose eye has seen the color- mar-
vels of evening in the southland, which, proceeding from the
throne of that monarch, deck as by magic sea and land, moun-tain and valley, earth and sky with a chromatic splendor that
no artist can imitate—yonder the shimmering sea, the purple-surg-
ing, sacred salt-tide of Homer; here proud mountains veiled in ten-
der violet ; between them the soundless plain once famous for its
rose-gardens, and in the plain that temple, transfigured by the
roseate, odorous haze ; abov.e us the sky, as blue as when blooming
life filled these fields now desolate for centuries, as smiling as
when, twenty-four hundred years agone, Hellenic faith erected the
temple—thus we saw that majestic construction, and then left that
region, bearing with us deep and imperishable impressions.
The temple at Paestum is an eloquent surviving witness of
struggles of world-wide significance, such as earth has not seen be-
fore or since, we mean the two centuries of conflict beginning with
Constantine, in which, as is commonly said, paganism succumbedto victorious Christianity. Two hundred years ! A long time, so
long that we cannot possibly assume that from the start Christian-
1 Translated by Prof. W. H. Carruth of the University of Kansas.
322 THE OPEN COURT.
ity was facing in paganism a weak, half-dead opponent. It must
be that this opponent possessed great vitality if it was only after
two hundred years that he could be declared conquered by a
church which was supported by the most powerful of allies, the
State.
We speak of a two hundred years' conflict between Christian-
ity and paganism. Is the expression correct ? Was then this
struggle a purely spiritual struggle, and did the victory consist in
a conquest of the spirit of paganism by the spirit of Christianity?
And was there an inner victory won, which resulted in the disap-
pearance of the outward evidences of pagan life, as, for instance,
the temples? We speak of a "fall, "an "overthrow" of Hellenic-
Roman paganism. Does this mean that those two hundred years
destroyed the moral and religious tendencies of paganism so that
mankind was transformed, first inwardly and then, as a conse-
quence of this, outwardly?
In the temple of Paestum we see a lifeless relic of paganism;
the present article will show forth some of its living relics.
With Constantine, the first so-called "Christian " emperor, the
power of the State was turned against paganism. While the pagan
Roman emperors had endeavored to annihilate Christianity by an-
nihilating the individual Christians, the Christian Roman emperors
resorted to another method for accomplishing their ends. In order
to exterminate paganism they directed their attack against pagan
worship, which was the means, according to the Roman point of
view, of preserving for all mankind the favor of the guardian gods.
The government attempted to abolish this by violence in order
thus to deprive paganism of the means of self-manifestation, the
very condition of existence. As a matter of course acts of violence
could not abolish the religious spirit and tendency of paganism,
and the fact that two hundred years, were required for a by no
means complete outward Christianisation shows how little virtue
there was in the violent measures of government.
Measures against the pagan Roman worship could not fail to
strike the temples at the very first. The closing, evacuation or de-
struction of the temples, as well as their use for the construction of
churches and other purposes, began under Constantine and his
sons, but did not assume considerable headway until the end of the
century of Constantine (the 4th), under Emperor Theodosius. TheChurch hailed him as a second Joash, of whom the Old Testament
says : "And all the people of the land went to the house of Baal
and brake it down; his altars and images brake they in pieces
PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN CHURCH. 323
thoroughly." (2 Kings, xi. 18.) At this time the Church began
to call out the hosts of her monks for the destruction of the tem-
ples, and among the bishops there were not a few who flattered
themselves that they possessed the spirit, the power and the call-
ing of Elijah. Such a one was, for instance, Theophilus, bishop
of Alexandria, who thoroughly destroyed the world-famed temple
of Serapis at that place and also destroyed the unapproachable, mys-
terious, miraculous image of the great Serapis. The Church wasfilled with rejoicings, for she believed that the fall of this temple
was a glorious victory for Christianity. For the vanished Serapis
the Church offered compensation in " king " Christ, and the heathen
who were converted by such deeds now expected all that they had
formerly hoped and obtained from Serapis from Christ, who as-
sumed the guardianship of the Nile-gauge which had formerly stood
in the temple of Serapis. Such was the dispensation of the Church.
For the honor of Christ and the pursuit of their own salvation bands
of ]monks, fanatical or instigated by fanatics, undertook in those
days regular crusades against the temples, and in Canopus (Egypt),
for instance, razed to the ground all the temples, although they
made compensation by providing for the construction of Christian
sanctuaries and furnishing them with relics of the saints in the
place of the expelled gods, in whom the whole Church of that time
recognised real powers, called "daemons," which according to the
notions of that time were subdued by the magic spell of the Church.
Such a crusade was undertaken in Syria by the trooper-bishop
Marcellus, attended by gladiators, soldiers, and monks, and in
Gaul Bishop Martin, elevated from the camp to be a Church offi-
cial, could not repress his warlike ardor and directed it against
temples and "daemons." No wonder that the Frankish rulers
chose this bishop for their patron saint and took with them on their
crusades as a palladium that guarded and guaranteed victory the
mitre of Saint Martin. The clergy, who had charge of this palla-
dium at home and on the way, received from the "cappa" (hat, or
mitre) referred to the name "cappelani," and the receptacle which
contained the palladium was called "cappella" (hat-box). This
"cappa," then, served the same purpose for the Christian Frank-
ish princes as for ^neas that palladium which he took with him
from Troy (^neid, I., 378), or as that famous "ancile" (shield)
which was regarded in Rome as a direct gift of heaven, or as that
famous image of Mary in Constantinople, which at the beginning
of the fifth century was dedicated to public worship by Pulcheria,
sister of the Emperor Theodosius II., and in critical times was
324 THE OPEN COURT.
fastened as a protection to that portion of the wall which was most
exposed to hostile attacks. Constantine had the very same expec-
tation of the cross, cceleste signum Dei, when he substituted it for
the pagan emblems that had been worshipped as divine.
While in the Orient the temples were quite thoroughly cleaned
away, in the Occident, and especially in Italy, they received very
different treatment. We are told of no scenes of vandalism, nor of
trooper-bishops and crusades against the temples of Italy. Monas-
ticism did not appear there until later, and this absence of fanatic
mobs of monks preserved the temples from the fate that befell
them in the Orient. In Italy in the course of the two centuries be-
ginning with Constantine only a small portion of the temples were
violently destroyed ; on the contrary they were evacuated, closed,
deprived of their revenues and consequently of their administra-
tion ; many, after their pillars had been taken away for Christian
purposes, fell into ruins, many were transformed into churches,
many survived these two centuries to meet later one of the fates
just mentioned or to be destroyed by earthquakes. Many temples,
chiefly in Sicily, have defied the ravages of time until the present
day. It is true, the number of theatres preserved is much greater,
a fact that is easily explained. For when the temples had long
been desolate in Italy the pagan theatre still flourished, together
with beast-baiting and gladiatorial combats, which for instance did
not cease in Rome until the beginning of the fifth century.^ The
temples in Naples disappeared almost utterly, but only grad-
ually in the succeeding centuries, likewise in Tarentum (Taranto)
and in Palermo. The effects of an earthquake may be seen in the
temple ruins of Girgenti and Selinus in Sicily, and in Calabria
more than a hundred years ago a fearful earthquake destroyed
manj^ remains of temples. It is remarkable that in two places the
Greek word for temple, Naos, has been preserved. Capo di Nao is
the name to-day among the Calabrian people for that promontory
on the Gulf of Tarentum where still a single column marks the
place of the temple of Hera. Near the modern Monteleone the
same word calls attention to the site of a temple.
This extensive sparing of the temples in Italy fifteen hundred
years ago proves on the one hand that the Chritian emperors did
not and could not carry out all that they decreed, and on the other
hand that the people were free from Christian fanaticism. It would
have been an easy matter to destroy all the temples of Italy
1 The spectacle of beast-baiting was permitted as late as the sixth century, and that by the
Christian emperor Justinian. Even the clergy participated at such spectacles.
PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN CHURCH. 325
in the course of fifty years, yet what could have been accom-
plished in a short space of time was not completed in two hundred
years. When the Normans took possession of Sicily in the elev-
enth century they found there numerous Mohammedan sanctuaries
erected by the Arabian conquerors. In Palermo there were several
hundred temples and mosques. All these were destroyed in no
time at all by the order of the Norman leaders ; the same in Bari
and elsewhere. There is not a trace of such structures left.
Now because ruins of temples were once very common things
in Southern Italy it has come about in later centuries that the peo-
ple in many cases regarded the ruins of secular edifices as remains
of temples. Many a time the writer has strayed along the deserted
strand of Baiae with its many ruins, praised by Horace as the most
charming corner of the earth, and always heard the people there
demonstrate the ruins of the baths to be the temples of every possi-
ble Roman divinity. On the slope of Posilipo, near Naples, stands
the solitary ruin of a Roman bathing villa, known to-day in the
popular language as the "Castle of the Ghosts." In this title wehear an echo of the ancient belief in '' daemons " which was pre-
served even by the Christians for centuries, and the stronghold of
the belief in the mysterious magic of the pagan Roman world is
shown by other ruins on Mount Posilipo where to this day a piece
of ruined wall is entitled "the School of Virgil," that is, the place
where Virgil, who was regarded as a magician, taught his magic
arts. In modern Sulmona, the birth place of Ovid, popular songs
speak of him to this day as a magician.
For the judgment of past and present it is important to knowthe connexion between the oldest churches of Southern Italy and
the pagan temples.
Nearly all the oldest church structures originated in one of the
three following ways : either they made use of all sorts of temple
materials, and especially pillars, or they were built upon the samefoundation which once bore a temple, or the temples were trans-
formed into Christian churches. That is, pagan materials served
to make the new Christian structure. This sort of church build-
ings may serve as a simile to characterise the spiritual reconstruc-
tion of those centuries. The Church of that time built a new spir-
itual structure, but of pagan materials.
In S. Clemente, on the road between Naples and Salerno, lies
one of the least known and at the same time most remarkable
churches of Christendom, notable because it has come down to our
time almost unaltered, although it belongs without question to the
326 Ttt£ OP£N COURT.
fifth century. It is a baptistery, and therefore round and provided
with a variety of antique pillars. Pillars from what was once the
temple of Apollo are seen in the church of S. Restituta in Na-ples, pillars from the temple of Poseidon in the pilasters of the ca-
thedral in the same place. There are antique pillars in the old
church of S. Costanzo on the island of Capri, which marks the
place down by the sea where the ancient village of Capri stood,
destroyed later by the Saracens. These are but a few of the in-
stances from the oldest period of Southern Italian church struc-
tures. When later the Lombards settled here and had princely
residences in Salerno, Capua, and Benevento, they too used an-
tique columns in their church edifices. It was some five hundredyears before the supply of columns was exhausted. Toward the
last Paestum became a rich source of supply. Thence the Normanduke Robert Guiscard brought the ancient columns for his cathe-
dral at Salerno on which he inscribed himself "dux," "rex," and" imperator," as may be read to-day. The atrium of this cathe-
dral still shows the stolen columns of the proud Norman. FromPaestum also the rich merchants of the once mighty Amalfi pro-
cured a supply of columns for their cathedral. Twenty splendid
granite columns, which adorn the cathedral of Gerace are of Hel-
lenic origin, taken from the ruins of ancient Locri. The Normanduke Roger, who once resided in Melito (Calabria), procured col-
umns from the ruins of Hipponion near the modern Monteleone.
It is worth noting that the erection of such columns in
churches, especially in the oldest times, was done in a very unsys-
tematic way. They took what they found—and accordingly wesee even yet pillars of very different kinds standing side by side.
And a similar method was pursued by the Church of those centu-
ries in its spiritual edifice.
Just as they gathered up columns, so they did other pagan ob-
jects which could be used in the churches for various purposes. In
the cathedral at Naples we see a splendid basalt basin with beau-
tiful reliefs showing the worship of Bacchus, snatched from some
temple. It serves as a baptismal font ! In the cathedral at Ter-
racina is seen an ancient granite tub, in the cathedral at Amalfi an
antique vase, in the cathedral at Syracuse a very pagan and secu-
lar mixing-vessel. It is known that in many churches in Romethere are marble episcopal chairs which once stood in the bath-
rooms of the public baths of Diocletian. Rome, indeed, gave a
widely followed example in the gathering up of pagan material for
ecclesiastical purposes. By this statement we mean not merely
PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN CHURCH. 327
bath chairs, and so forth, but we are thinking also of material for
the spiritual edifice of the Church.
Numerous antique sarcophagi with therr pagan reliefs consti-
tute an odd adornment of the older churches of Southern Italy.
They are found, for instance in Salerno, Capua, Amalfi, Cava (in
the monastery of S. Trinita), Palermo, and in Naples and Gir-
genti. It is a strange sight when the eye is surprised in a Chris-
tian church by Hellenic-Roman inscriptions and finds dancing bac-
chantes where they should not be expected. The sarcophagus in
Girgenti is famous, with its relief representing the legend of Hippo-
lytus. When we come to examine the spiritual structure of the
Church more closely we shall be still more surprised by mytholo-
gical features of a different sort than by those on the sarcophagi
mentioned.
Little is preserved of the chief adornment of the temples, the
statues of the gods, for while in Italy no sweat was wasted over de-
liberate and violent destruction of the temples, during these two
centuries of conflict the images of the gods were for the most part
destroyed, and what is found in the museums, as at Naples, is but
a remnant. For in that city images of the gods were so numerous
that the proverb ran : "You are more likely to meet a god than a
man in Naples." Only one of all the extant statues of the gods in
Southern Italy has escaped the lot of imprisonment in a museum.
It is a mutilated Ariadne which stands beside a fountain in the
vicinity of Monteleone, where it is worshipped unto this day under
the name of Santa Venere, just as Poseidon was worshipped in the
temple at Paestum, the divinity being identified with the statue.
" Saint Venus " is appealed to by women under certain circum-
stances down to this day. And the harbor at that place is namedafter her : Porto Santa Venere.
The temples from which the statues of the gods had disap-
peared, when once they were changed into churches, or when newchurches were built on their foundations, were straightway occu-
pied by the ancient paganism under the guise of Christianity. Thepagan rhetor Libanius, who in that period of conflict presented to
the Roman emperor a defence of the endangered temples, wasright: "They may close the temples against the gods, but not the
hearts of men." Some instances will illustrate this.
The oldest church that was built within the walls of Naples in
the sixth century (there were some churches built without the walls
previous to this), stood upon the ruins of a temple of Artemis,
and was dedicated to the Madonna. The latter took the place of
328 THE OPEN COURT.
the former and assumed all of her former functions. In the ancient
campanile of this church, built of brick, one may still see all man-
ner of fragments of that temple. To this day in that church
women ask of the Madonna precisely what was once asked of Ar-
temis in the same place. On the slope of Posilipo, near Naples,
there stands solitary on the shore a church of the Madonna on the
spot where once sea-faring men could see a temple of Venus Eu-
pleua, that is, the divinity who protected harbors and naviga-
tion. To the present hour in the eyes of the fishermen the Ma-donna performs the same offices as did once Dame Venus, and gifts
are brought to her altar as of old, and vows performed before her
image as once they were before that of Venus Eupleua. There
was in Naples a temple of Antinous, the well-known favorite of the
Emperor Hadrian, who placed him among the gods, after the
youth had incurred death for his sake. On the place of this temple
has stood from early times the church of St. John the Baptist, whoalso incurred death for the sake of his Master. John the Baptist,
then, in the simplest and most natural fashion, displaced Antinous
and assumed in the eyes of the so-called Christians the same office
that Antinous had filled. In Terracina the church of S. Cesareo
stands upon a temple of Augustus; in Messina St. Gregory dis-
placed Jupiter in the same manner, and in Girgenti Zeus was like-
wise obliged to flee before S. Gerlando ; and when Saint Benedict
came to Monte Cassino in the sixth century, S. Martino, that war-
like saint, chased away Apollo, who, as we all know, had pierced
with his dart the serpent Python. On the highest point in modern
Pozzuoli stands the cathedral of Saint Proculus on the foundation
of a splendid temple of Augustus which the Apostle Paul saw whenhe landed there. One who travels along the magnificent mountain
road toward Sorrento and enters the divinely favored plain at
Meta, covered with fragrant orange groves, will find in Meta a fa-
mous church of the Madonna which offers the same miraculous
cures that were once sought on the same spot in a temple of Mi-
nerva Medica. From the fifth century there has existed in a cave
on the majestic promontory of Monte Gargano in Apulia the an-
cient sanctuary of St. Michael, who expelled from the place in the
fifth century the oracular daemons of Kalchas. We shall later hear
more of this famous shrine. At Marsala (in Sicily) a church of
S. Giovanni was built above the cave and magic spring of a sibyl,
and there the saint still dispenses oracles, that is, has displaced the
sibyl. On the summit of Monte Vergine near Naples once stood a
sanctuary of the Magna Mater (Cybele), and when S. Guiglielmo
PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN CHURCH. 329
built his cells there as a hermit he found the remains of the sanc-
tuary, which had been a pilgrim shrine of the pagans down to the
days of the last emperors. Upon the ruins was erected a church
of the Madonna which was soon equipped with a famous miracu-
lous image {imago prodigiosa), and thus once more a "magnamater" reigns there, who is so highly esteemed that this shrine at-
tracts more than fifty thousand pilgrims every year at Pentecost.
In the sixth century a pagan asked the monk Isidor what dif-
ference there was between the magna mater Cybele and the
Madonna.
One of the best examples is furnished us in the Madonna del
Capo (of the Promontory). On the towering Licinian promontory
near Croton on the Gulf of Tarentum stood formerly the temple of
Hera Lucina, the religious centre for all the Hellenic colonies of
that coast, a shrine of solemn pilgrimage to which came every year
a brilliant-hued procession, just as in Athens to the Parthenon.
Forty-eight marble columns enclosed this sanctuarj^, which stood
in the midst of a murmuring fir grove and guarded immense treas-
ures, which, however, even a Hannibal spared, fearing the wrath
of the divinity. When this temple came into Roman possession it
retained its popularity, the only change being that the name of the
goddess was changed to Juno Lucina. Then Christianity entered
the country, and in the fifth century the bishop of Croton changed
that temple into a church. Again only a slight change was made,
for the divinity whose image was displayed there was now called
Mary, but in her function and influence she was all that Juno had
been. Afterwards as before processions went up thither, after-
wards as before vows were performed, afterwards as before womenappealed in the most important concerns of life to Mary-Juno-
Hera. Pythagoras, who developed his chief activity in Croton,
induced the women there to lay their ornaments on the altar of
Hera. In later times many Christian virgins did the same before
they renounced the world and entered the cloister. That temple
of the Madonna was left solitary when the Saracens devastated the
coast, the sacred image was taken to Croton, but the temple itself
remained in good preservation for a long time. Finally it was de-
stroyed by a bishop of Croton, who constructed a palace for him-
self out of the material. This man bore the name Lucifero and
lived about the year 1520. To-day it may be said of the temple:
" Only one lofty column
Tells of its vanished splendor."
330 THE OP£N COURT.
Finally an example from Sicily. On Mount Eryx in the north
part of the island, illumined by sunshine or veiled in clouds, there
overlooked the sacred salt tide the temple-sanctuary of Aphrodite,
famous throughout antiquity among both Greeks and Romans.
The temple has disappeared, but on the same height, called Monte
S. Giugliano, the graciously smiling, loving Madonna is wor-
shipped. Aphrodite kept there her sacred doves, and to this hour
doves are to be seen fluttering about the mountain and the sacred
spot, for no priestly conjuration has been able to remove this relic
of paganism. A strange testimony this !
In this rechristening of the old gods also an example was set
the church by eternal Rome, this episcopal capital which had been
Christianised outwardly at the end of the fourth and the beginning
of the fifth century. Pagan mothers there were in the habit of
taking their sick children to the sanctuary of Romulus and implor-
ing aid of him who had been suckled by the she-wolf on that spot.
The church did not want the Christianised mothers to be deprived
of any comfort, and accordingly erected a Christian sanctuary there
and established in it St. Theodorus, to whom mothers appealed
just as before they had done to Romulus. This transformation
took place in the fourth century, and the church referred to, a
round structure of brick, partly ancient material, still stands. Twocenturies later eternal Rome crowned the work of rechristening by
transforming the Pantheon, the temple dedicated to all the gods,
into a church sacred to all the martyrs, after taking into it whole
wagon-loads of holy bones.
Even in the fourth century many a man of deeper insight com-
plained of the merely nominal Christianity of the masses who were
floating with the current. These were the voices of prophets in the
wilderness. There is a mournful sound in the judgment of Augus-
tine upon his time: ''Jesus is seldom sought for his own sake.'
It is a painful saying when Chrysostom compares the church of his
time with a woman who has retained only the empty chests in
which her wealth had been. While even such superior minds were
by no means able to escape entirely the spell of paganism, others
floated along with this tide that was submerging the church with-
out being aware that they were dominated by paganism. We mean
to include all those churchmen of the two centuries of conflict who
assigned to the saints and martyrs the very same function which,
according to the doctrines of the Stoics and the Neo-Platonists, be-
longed to heroes, daemons, and guardian spirits. Without difficulty
the outwardly Christianised pagan masses found again in the
PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN CHURCH. 33l
church what they had just surrendered. The Spartans had apotheo-
sised their Lycurgus, the Hellenes Hercules and other heroes,
the Romans their emperors (including Constantine), Hadrian had
deified his Antinous. The Church did the same with its martyr-
heroes. The Church said: "Juno Lucina is a false divinity;
Mary is the true intercessor between men and the Most High."
This was the "lenitas," the mild method, of the Church, which
often made pagans Christians by the wholesale but gave to Chris-
tianity a pagan form and accordingly reared a spiritual edifice that
corresponded with the Church edifices of those centuries of con-
flict. In both pagan material was used. The protection of pagan
deities which had been secured by pagan religious ceremonies
made way for Christian ceremonies which ensured the guardian
care of Christian divinities. The fact remained, only the namewas changed.
For the better understanding of the above it must be remem-
bered how deeply rooted in the heart of a Hellenic-Roman pagan
was the need of reaching with faith and hope those deities of a
lower grade, which, as intercessory divinities, were nearer to man,
and furthermore what support the Hellenic-Roman religious faith
had received in this direction from the philosophical doctrines of
the second century. Then we must consider in this connexion the
well-known fact that during the first Christian centuries new divin-
ities and new forms of worship were constantly being introduced
from the Orient and willingly received. So the Hellenic-Roman
pagan worl^was accustomed to hear of new and powerful aiding
and atoning divinities, and the yearning human heiart turned with
especial readiness to those divinities and forms of worship which
promised atonement. Why, men asked, should they not give a
trial to Christianity which blazed, a propitious planet, above the so-
called Christian emperors, which promised to the longing humanheart the true aiding and atoning divinities, substituted a brilliant
ceremonial for the splendor of pagan worship, and received all pos-
sible aid favor and encouragement from the great ones of the
age? Moreover the charitable institutions of all sorts within the
Church and its membership constituted an especial attraction for
the people of the poorer classes. As early as 325 A. D., indeed, com-
plaint was made by the Council of Nicaea of the defective prepara-
tion of the catechumens. Finally I call attention to the fact
that the Hellenic-Roman pagan world never hesitated to modify
newly introduced divinities or to recognise in them their ownheathen deities. When, for instance, the worship of Mithras, the
332 THE OPEN COURT.
Persian god of light, was introduced, traces of which may still be
seen in a cave on the island of Capri, the religious Roman merely
saw in Mithras his own pagan deity Sol (the sun). The Phoenician
Astarte was modified by the Hellenes into Aphrodite, and she in
turn became among the Romans Venus. Tacitus was able to see
in the Germanic gods those of his native Rome. Thus we see the
reason why it was so easy for the outwardly Christianised pagans
to feel at home on the Christian Olympus with its saints and its
Mary, especially as the nature of the religion suffered no change.
It was afterwards as before a matter of ceremonial, that is, the es-
sence of certain performances which were believed to have an in-
herently magical effect. Christianity was regarded as the new dis-
pensation, and the Christianised pagan merely exchanged one
dispensation for another.
Just as the pagan divinities, with Christian names, leaving the
deserted temples entered the churches, so the Hellenic-Roman re-
ligious ceremonial followed them. The construction of the Chris-
tian ceremonial during these two centuries of conflict is a parallel
to the construction of the churches by means of pagan materials.
We meet in the churches the spell of the holy water, wesee to-day the clouds of incense, the flowers on the altars, the
candles before the images, the votive offerings or "vota," relics of
all sorts, pictures and statues, the latter in such growing ava-
lanches on Neapolitan territory that the modern churches revive
the truth of that old proverb mentioned above :" In Naples one is
more likely to meet a god than a man." All these things are por-
tions of the Hellenic-Roman ceremonial, introduced during those
two hundred years of so-called conflict.
At the entrance of pagan temples stood a vessel of holy water
with which to sprinkle oneself, and magic rpells added strength to
the holy water as to-day ; the aspergillum (holy water sprinkler)
was very familiar to the pagans, and sprinkling men and inanimate
objects with holy water was a universal pagan custom. While Jus-
tin Martyr in the second century condemned the holy water as an
invention of the devil, opinion had changed by the end of the fourth
century. The erudite Jerome tells, with the pagan-Christian belief
in miracles common to his time, that the race-horses of a Chris-
tian, sprinkled with holy water, won over the horses of a heathen.
"Thus the pagan god was conquered by Christ." (Jerome, op. 4,
p. 80.) That Christian baptism took the place of pagan ceremo-
nies of atonement in the eyes of Emperor Constantine and his
contemporaries, and likewise in the eyes of Emperor Theodosius,
PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN CHURCH. . 333
is clear from the fact that baptism was transferred to the close of
life.i
Clouds of incense and the glitter of candles were prominent
features in the pagan temples. Aphrodite escapes to Paphos and
views with joy the place where rises her temple and where glow a
hundred altars with the burning incense from Sheba and fragrant
with fresh wreaths (Virgil, Aeneid I., 415). Jeremiah (xliv. 17)
condemned the Jews who burned incense to the queen of heaven;
Emperor Theodosius forbade pagan burnt offerings. The prohib-
ited incense, rechristened with a Christian name, entered the
churches, and with it lights, whether in costly lamps or in the
glimmer of tapers. Of perpetual lamps {vigil ignis) we are told by
Virgil, iEneid IV., 200 :
"And altars placed a hundred ; vigil fires
He hallowed there, the eternal guards of heaven."
The temples were filled with votive gifts, just such as we find
to-day in all the churches of the South, in some of them in great
quantities. In vEschylus's tragedy of "The Seven Against
Thebes " women hasten full of anxiety into the temples, and wehear some of them exclaim before the images of the gods : "Nowit is time, ye holy ones of this temple, that we appeal to your im-
ages as we embrace them." They call out to Poseidon, then to
Apollo, to Hera, and so on :" Remember the temples, remember
the sacrifices, remember the rich gifts, remember the votive offer-
ings, and hasten ! " Any one acquainted with modern Naples might
think ^schylus was our contemporary and had intended in the
above passage to depict the present thought regarding votive offer-
ings. Of the donaria (votive gifts), which often consisted of rep-
resentations of beneficial occurrences, the Roman poet Tibullus
says (Eleg., I., 3) : "O goddess, that thou canst give aid is shownby the number of paintings that deck thy temple." Had Tibullus
seen the contemporary churches of Southern Italy ? The Romansatirist Juvenal, a contemporary of Hadrian, says that the goddess
Isis furnished a living to the painters of votive pictures. Did the
poet mean perhaps the Madonna at Naples?
Relics, too, the pagans had, but not quite so plentifully as the
Christians. The bones of Theseus rested in Athens, whither they
had been solemnly brought, and where they were regarded as
pledges of his protection. The house of Romulus, the stones vom-ited forth by Saturn, a chip of the ship Argo, and so forth, were
regarded as very sacred relics.
1 Atoning ceremonials of magic power were numerous in the pagan world.
334 • THE OPEN COURT.
According to Plutarch the pagan king Numa objected to the
images of the gods in the temples, but later the worship of images
in the temples assumed great dimensions and moved from the tem-
ples into the churches. Emperor Theodosius forbade the heathen
worship of images, but it was rechristened, and to-day goes far
beyond the limits observed by paganism, and is protected by abso-
lution. The images, as in ancient life, are identified with the
" santi " whom they are intended to represent, and the number of
these increases with incredible speed. When the Arabs took pos-
session of the city of Selinunt (Modione) in Sicily they found so
many statues of saints that they called the city Rahl el Asnam,""village of idols." Closely connected with the worship of images
is the cultivation of processions, which to day are as much like the
corresponding performances of Hellenic-Roman worship as one
twin the other, as like as the Christian legends of miracles are to
the pagan. The legends of the pagans laid aside the Roman toga,
clothed themselves in the Christian cassock, and became thus eli-
gible to church membership. Finally the Church took under her
patronage the festivals connected with the Church service, hoping
that a saint placed in the centre of these festivals so popular with
the common people would transform them into something sacred.
But she was disappointed, or, more correctly, she lost all sense of
the distinction between pagan and Christian festivals. We maybe witnesses of Christian festivals later which would serve as ex-
amples of Pagan orgies. In ancient life the priests were managers
of the festivals. The Christian priests of Southern Italy perform
this office to the present day, and understand the business as well
as did their pagan predecessors.
The Church spoke of victory and triumph when she saw the
temples deserted, the gods banished, and herself raised to the
throne, like Joseph who rose from chains and a dungeon to royal
distinction. The victory of the Church was in fact her defeat,
which became complete when sacrifices were admitted to the
church buildings. Sacrifices were the heart and centre of the Hel-
lenic-Roman worship, and were forbidden by the Christian emper-
ors again and again for two hundred years, and finally on pen-
alty of death. In the sacrifice of the mass that central feature
of ancient worship found its way from the temples into the newchurches, and along with it the class of sacrificing priests, to
whom descended the function, the office and the wealth of the
pagan priests who had been dismissed. The Christian priest, ton-
sured after the fashion of the pagan Isis-worship, beside him the
PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN CHURCH. 335
altar-attendant, just as he may be seen in a Pompeiian fresco,
—
the Christian priest offering the mass-sacrifice for the living andthe dead, that was the complete defeat of the Church at the mo-ment when she was dreaming of victory.
The Hellenic- Roman temples served not only the rites of re-
ligion ; many of them had other incidental objects. When the
churches were offered as compensation for the deserted temples it
was expected that this compensation should be complete, for the
force of custom is great, especially in the South. It is well knownthat the right of asylum was transferred to the churches. Tem-ples were also storehouses for public and private treasures, andnearly every temple had an especial treasure-chamber. Millions
in treasure were concealed for instance in the above-mentioned
temples of Hera Lucina, Aphrodite Erycina, and in many others.
The temple on the island of Delos, as is known, contained the
public treasure of Athens. Private citizens often deposited great
sums, and the supervisors of the temples, that is, the priests, not
infrequently acted as bankers, carrying on financial operations with
such capital. For centuries, in Naples, for instance, many monas-teries with fine churches attached, and certain richly endowed char-
itable institutions were the only public banks, which understood
not only financiering but bankruptcy as well. The pious bank that
was connected with the foundling asylum and had millions in de-
posits from private persons ended in the previous century with a
crash. Any one who wishes to see what a treasury really is should
ask to be shown the treasure-chapel of S. Gennaro in the cathe-
dral at Naples, where there are millions in precious stones. Thechurch of S. Maria Nuova in Naples once had such a wealth of
gifts that had been presented to a certain miraculous image that it
was possible to pay for a complete reconstruction of the church
from the sale of them. The proceeds were 120,000 lire. Further-
more the temples guarded public and private documents, records
of all sorts, sometimes even the lists of citizens, so that the priests
acted as archivists. In this direction, too, the church furnished a
substitute, in the shape of the monasteries. Of old the positions
with the widest outlook had been chosen for temples, and the mon-asteries followed this example: these sacred places became the re-
positories of all important public and private documents within
their districts. We find such treasures, for example, in the mon-astery of Monte Cassino, in the monastery Trinita della Cava; one
of the most important historical archives in the world is the gov-
ernment archive in Naples, now in the chambers of the monastery
336 THE OPEN COURT.
of S. Severino. The greater part of its treasures consists of rec-
ords which were deposited in monasteries. Every monastery was
a Delphi in the eyes of its neighborhood.
Many temples served also as museums for the monuments of
the great dead. In the Parthenon at Athens the sons of Themis-
tocles set up a statue of their father ; the statues of the heroes of
Attica were to be seen at Delphi ; the porches of many temples
were filled with statues of victors; in the temples erected in honor
of the emperors were seen their statues ; even Cleopatra stood in
a Roman temple. The force of ancient custom causes the churches,
equally numerous in modern times, to be used in the same way.
The church of S. Domenico in Naples, with its worthy and its
worthless monuments, is the temple of fame of the Neapolitan aris-
tocracy. S. Domenico in Palermo serves the same purpose. The
church of S. Croce in Florence is a national temple of fame; St.
Peter's in Rome, the papal. "And marble figures stand and gaze
at me."
The power of custom in southern lands was cited above in ex-
planation. The writer, who has lived uninterruptedly for more
than ten years in that region, is constrained to call the power of
custom, as he has observed it, astounding when he marshals before
his mind's eye all the small and great things that have been pre-
served of ancient life and have become a part of the manners and
customs of popular life, while the people themselves take not the
slightest account of this origin. In this sketch we can cite only a
few examples, and will refer to but a few things which show how
ancient life has been preserved to the present day in even trifles.
The donkeys which carry vegetables to the city are equipped with
the " bissaccium " which comes from the ancient Roman times;
the two-wheeled Roman carriage, the "cisium" is perpetuated in
the popular "corricolo," which we see standing by the hundred in
the very places where rose the ancient gates of Naples and where
such carriages had had their stand for centuries. Ancient statues
of horses show the forelock tied up neatly, a custom which may be
observed in thousands of instances in the Campagna. Look at the
bottles and jugs for wine and oil found at Pompeii, the shape of the
loaves of bread ; regard the recreations of large and small ; note the
tambourine ("tympanon") used in the popular dances; consider the
beds of the South with their dreadful height and their two little
and more dreadful pillows,—everywhere we find ancient Romanlife preserved in such trifles. But in popular life there are details
which are still older and show the specific Hellenic influence. The
PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN CHURCH. 337
numerous money-changers under the open sky, the cook-shops on
the street and the kettles of boiled lentils, the door-knockers in the
older quarters, the fondness for garlic, the number of hair-dressers,
the custom that men make the daily purchases for the house, all
features of Neapolitan daily life, are derived from Greek life.
Even those intestine-vendors mentioned by Aristophanes are still
to be found in Naples, offering their unappetising wares to-day in
this once Hellenic city as formerly they did on the streets of Ath-
ens. Pits as receptacles for oil, such as are to-day found in Apu-
lia, for instance, were known to the Hellenes ; the modern shep-
herds in the Sila forest with their shawms remind us of the
shepherds of Theocritus ; and as of old in the cities of Greece
rhapsodes recited publicly the tales of Homer's heroes, so Naples
preserves her "cantastorie," i. e., her story-tellers, who entertain
the listening crowd with the heroes of Tasso and Ariosto. In the
popular theatre certain figures of the ancient theatre are preserved,
and rural wine-stands are painted on the door-posts just as one
may see them to-day preserved in one case in Pompeii.
If from these few instances we see the striking power of con-
servative custom in unimportant things, the same power is to be
reckoned with the more surely in considering the highest and most
important sphere of ancient life, religion. Here of all places the
power of custom caused the old and traditional to be preserved.
In closing let us once more cast a glance upon temples and
churches. The number of the latter in the South is great, but the
number of temples also was always equal to the demand. Onewho knows the history of the two centuries before Constantine is
aware to what an extent Hellenic-Roman piety devoted itself to
the construction of temples and pious endowments of every sort,
vows, dreams, divine revelations as well as the hope of favor and
profit, being the chief motives. In innumerable instances we find
the same motives in church endowments. Vows of the city
and vows of princes created the principal churches in Naples, for
instance, and probably every church of the South is in some re-
spect an evidence of that pagan desire for reward which descended
to the Christian Church, of "righteousness of works. " The fa-
mous treasure-chapel of St. Januarius in Naples originated in a
\iow of the city, given in the time of a severe pestilence. By this
performance they won the favor of the " santo " referred to, and
expected from him an equivalent. If for S. Gennaro we substi-
tute an ancient divinity, we have the religious life of paganism.
While we find the ancient pagan motives active in the con-
338 THE OPEN COURT.
struction and decoration of churches, yet a church is a very differ-
ent thing from a temple. Let us compare a modern church with
the temple of Paestum. The pagan temple stood in the midst of a
sacred territory, far from the tumult of secular life, often in the
midst of sacred groves, and the presence of the divinity was felt in
the solemn silence. The churches of the South, on the contrary,
stand in the midst of the rush of the street, shut in by secular
buildings, often disturbed by mad noises, as though it were in-
tended to deprive the worshippers of the last remnant of inspira-
tion, of sense of the nearness of God. The temple of Paestum
shows a direct, simple and majestic dignity and a solemn sobriety.
The churches of Southern Italy? The older ones all have been
modernised, i. e., supplied with the empty ornaments of senseless
decoration; the later ones have all the same tendency. The tem-
ple at Paestum had a single statue of a divinity, which occupied the
"cella," and only one altar, just in front of the temple, and the
eyes of those gathered about the altar turned from it to the solemn
and silent interior of the temple. The churches of Southern Italy
are filled almost without exception with glass tabernacles in which
stand gaily decked or beribboned and bekerchiefed madonnas, cre-
ations of mere handicraft which never would have been endured in
a pagan temple. Inside, the churches show the disturbing features
of the many side-altars and other things which were unknown in
the temples. On the anniversaries of the patron saints and Ma-
donnas one might compare the churches with royal receptions ; at
the same time they are concert-halls, opera-houses, where one
hears opera-airs and merry dance-music. In Lent they become
college lecture-rooms, where the Lenten preachers, generally ad-
vertised as famous, "distinguished orators," begin their addresses
with "Signori," (Gentlemen). Sometimes one is reminded of a
theatre, for applause with clapping of the hands is not unheard of.
Fifteen hundred years ago the display oratory which had spread
itself before that time in the forum and in the halls of the rhetors,
entered the Church. It is still to be found in the churches of South-
ern Italy, and a saint or a Madonna has to endure not one, but
seven, oratorical displays (panegyricus). A Greek temple was
never disturbed by panegyrics.
Finally, the churches are mercantile establishments, having,
like these, their signs, displayed in some cases constantly, in oth-
ers only occasionally : "Perpetual, complete, daily absolution for
living and dead." Such signs were not seen about Roman and
Greek temples.
PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN CHURCH. 339
The last and most important church which was constructed in
Southern Italy (or in all Italy) before the union of Italy under the
house of Savoy is the church of S. Francisco di Paolo in Naples,
built more than seventy years ago by King Ferdinand in conse-
quence of a successful vow. It is an exact imitation in every re-
spect of a pagan temple, of the Pantheon at Rome. Thus in this
style of architecture the Church has returned once more to pa-
ganism.